I just bought once few weeks ago.
I needed... well, I wanted an FM module and by chance I passed by a Yamaha reseller; I saw it sitting on a shelf, an ex-demo for half the price... I was kind of depressed and some compulsive shopping made the magic. The only thing, the lack of manual (who cares, it sucks anyway) and packing... The display is quite scratched but I don't care too much. I managed to try it and I finally bought for 1300 SAR / 260 euro (Saudi Riyals. For the ones who doesn't know yet I'm an Italian "expat" in KSA). These kind of synths are quite rare in this Country. You find stores full of plastic XG workstation (all the same! Casio, Roland, Yamaha, Gem...) with built-in speakers and blue displays, or lots and lots of karaoke-related stuff, but it's very uncommon to find good synths; never seen a sampler, too.

Rants apart, I like it a lot. By now I use it too as a preset machine and I'm satisfied. I'd like to tweak it a little but the MacOs Editor (the one of the link) seems not to work on my G3 and my usb/midi interface doesn't work with MacOs 9 (for the Yamaha editor).

Skynet preset wrote:The manual is on absolute " dry " mode as if they were pissed to even describe controls Bank A and B ( 128 presets each ) explore the FS1R features ( more or less ) , the other banks are ports from the other synths ( using 6 ops ) and monotimbral so you have to figure ( browse output levels ) the operators that are off depending of algos.Personnally I kind of fell asleep while browsing a lot of samey presets ...Even with the great and free editor there are so much layers and ( unnecessary / not very potent ? ) controls that you spend a massive lot of time to move the sound, because you have to browse a lot to figure the key parameters on a given preset.I've never owned a DX7 but *only* based on the sound files I downloaded, DX7 sounds more warm so not sure you can find exact matches if you crave for them.

I like it but I'll never love it.

it will load DX7 files identically. i own a DX7IIFD, FS1R and SY99, they all sound the same if running the same patch.

At first I was a bit underwhelmed; the pads were nice but there wasn't enough difference between my other synths, with the exception of some of the vocal formant based sounds. But then I downloaded the free editor and started assigning controllers to various parameters so I could tweak sounds in real-time. I also modified several presets quite far away from their original state into new sounds that are really inspiring and that quickly went into strange territory, unlike any other synth I have.

This thing is a monster.

The editor is a must, no way around it.

I just finished a song that uses the FS1R, Moog Voyager, and some drums from my venerable SY99. Really interesting piece of gear. It's going to take some time to wrap my head around it!

Interesting side note (to me, anyway): One of the patches on the FS1R is called "Earth Lead" and must be the basis for a patch of the same name on the Motif series. I haven't had the chance to check my Motif ES rack, but I'm guessing Yamaha sampled the waveform created via FM on the FS1R for the version on the Motif.

It's a simple sound; two slightly detuned saw-ish waves with an EG controlled resonant filter. Add some stereo delay and slight reverb and voila. Last night I decided to try to re-create it on the SY77 and SY99. It isn't exactly the same because they are using a formant waveform as a modulator in the FS1R version, but I got pretty close due to the SY77/99 offering up 16 different waveforms for each operator, rather than just the standard sine. It sounds better on the SY99 because of the improved EFX, but other than that it is damn close to the FS1R. Now I just need to compare it to the Motif (which is part of my live rig and thus never in the studio).

The FS1R is very good at analog emulations. The SY77/99 can be as well, although I think the filter is better on the FS1R.

It makes me wonder if I can re-create some of my favorite sounds of the SY77 on the FS1R. It should be possible, though the values of each parameter are very different in scale.

The SY77/99 and the FS1r are both synths that followed their own path since the DX7. Both can do DX7 sounds, but since they both followed their own path, eventually they ended up being slightly different from eachother.

- The FS1r has 1 algo-fixed feeback, the SY77/99 has 3 configurable feedbacks- The SY77/99 has 16 operator waveforms -iirc-, the FS1r has 8, and they're different from the ones in the SY- In the SY77/99 you can set the phase of an operator, in the FS1r you can't- The SY77/99 has keyboard pitch scaling per key iirc, or at least something that scales, which is enough for pianos where the bottom end and top end are detuned', the FS1r didn't have this iirc.- The SY77/99 has segment-style scaling, the FS1r has more classic DX scaling

There may be more details like these. Sure: as long as you keep things simple and stick to a sine and one feedback, sounds could be rebuild, but go any deeper than that and you'll see clearly where they differ.

As for ye olde discussion which is better, SY77/99 or FS1r, the answer is easy: no one can tell, it's apples & oranges.